LONDON.- In June 2015, Christie’s will bring together an international line up of 174 artists to headline the Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction Week. Together the Evening and Day Auctions will present artists from 32 countries and feature some of the most celebrated figures from the past 50 years of art up to the present day; from Yves Klein, Alberto Burri, Francis Bacon, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter to Maurizio Cattelan, Zeng Fanzhi, Julie Mehretu, Raqib Shaw and Neo Rauch. Central to the Evening Auction are iconic YBA works from the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania and abstract and Pop highlights from the Jacobs Collection. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction will take place on 30 June 2015 from 7pm BST and the Day Auction will take place on 1 July from 1pm BST, both at Christie’s, King Street London.

Leading the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction are two visually daring mediations on one of art history’s most enduring subjects: the landscape. Francis Bacon’s Two Men in a Field, (1971, estimate: £7,000,000 – 10,000,000), is a rare example of a rural scene within Bacon’s practice and reveals a dialogue with the work of Van Gogh. Painted for Bacon’s landmark retrospective at the Grand Palais of the same year, the work adopts an eye-shaped motif as the field at the heart of the composition – are the workers cultivating the eye? Gerhard Richter’s Bӓume im Feld (Trees in Field, 1988, estimate: £4,000,000 – 6,000,000) is both an homage to and a subversive commentary on the Romantic tradition. A rare colour photo painting within Richter’s oeuvre, the work is a super-real example of a landscape in the very height of summer.

The auction also brings together two landscapes from 1969, by Polke and Richter. Rendered the same year as the Apollo 11 moon landing, Polke’s Mondlandschaft mit Schilf (Moonlight landscape with reeds, estimate: £3,500,000 – 4,500,000) is part landscape, part abstraction and part material painting, executed on two futuristic fabrics rather than canvas. Setting a tension between the shimmering formal play of the painterly gesture and the pictorial mystery of the moon surface, the work was created at a turning point in the artist’s career and echoes his exploration of illusionistic representation from earlier in the decade- while at the same time as anticipating his postmodern turn of the 1970s.

Never before offered at auction, Mondlandschaft mit Schilf was only once previously exhibited publicly as part of the landmark 1976 exhibition ‘Sigmar Polke: Bilder-Tucher-Objekte-Werkauswahl’ 1962-1972 at Tubingen, Künsthalle, which travelled to Stadtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf and Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Mondlandschaft mit Schilf is one of three works by Polke offered in the June Evening auction, the others being Ik Mach Dass Schon Je$s (I’ll Take Care of it Je$s, 1972, estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000) and Untitled (1994, estimate: £600,000 – 800,000).

Executed the same year as the moonscape, Gerhard Richter’s Seestück (Olive bewolkt) (Seascape with Olive Clouds, estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000) is an early example of Richter’s photorealist seascapes that mine the gap between abstraction and representation. Having previously only been exhibited once, in 1970 at the Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Seestück is one of a small number of early photopaintings of seascapes all from the same year, the majority of which are now housed within international museum collections; these include Seestück – Welle, 1969 (Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth), Seestück (bewölkt), 1969 (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart), Seestück (Morgenstimmung), 1969 (Musée départemental d’art contemporain, Rochechouart) and Seestück (bewölkt), 1969 (Neues Museum, Nurenberg).

Also by Richter, and one of four works in the auction, Kine (1995, estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000) is an abstract sweep of translucent veils of pink paint. Exhibited in the 1996 acclaimed retrospective ‘Gerhard Richter: 100 Bilder at Carré d’Art’ at the Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, Kine presents the painterly act as a subject matter in itself and exemplifies his return in the late nineties to his efforts to close the gap between figuration and abstraction.

Also central to the sale is the first of ten diptychs painted by Bacon, Study for the Head of Isabelle Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967, estimate: £8,000,000 – 12,000,000), which commemorates two of the artist’s most intimate relationships- his lover Dyer and life-long confidante Rawsthorne. Rendered with impassioned brushstrokes against an emerald background, it gives a glimpse into the tumult of the artist’s inner circle via one of his most powerful means: the 14 x 12 inch portrait.

CREATIVITY IS BURNING
Another leading group of works, from the 30 June sale, foregrounds the creative potential of destruction. Yves Klein’s FC 27 (Fire Colour 27, 1962) is one of the largest of his explosive series of fire paintings that were executed the year of his untimely death. Originally part of the collection of Francois de Menil, FC 27 combines Klein’s signature trio of colours, International Klein Blue, gold and rose, with the charred traces of a flame that was drawn across the surface of the work. FC27 has been shown at the Solomon R Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Contemporary art, Chicago; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Other examples from the same series are part of museum collections: FC 32 at MOMA, New York and FC17 at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk. The flame also becomes a surrogate for the brush in Alberto Burri’s Bianco plastica P (1970, estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000). Burri, who will have a retrospective at the Guggenheim this year, created the work by burning the plastic surface of his material to reveal a sensual play of textures in the crimps and folds of the work. This thread of destruction can also be traced through to Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Attese (1967, estimate £2,500,000 – 3,500,000) and Concetto spaziale, Attese (1965, estimate £800,000 – 1,200,000), both examples of Fontana’s signature act of cutting that render the brush obsolete.

ICONIC YBA ART FROM MUSEUM OF OLD AND NEW ART
Leading the selection of works from the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania is Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary (1996, estimate: £1,400,000 – 1,800,000), originally acquired by Charles Saatchi directly from the artist and first exhibited at the generation-defining exhibition ‘Sensation’ in London and New York. A focal point for the widespread media attention the exhibition received, The Holy Virgin Mary is considered one of the most significant works in an oeuvre that often plays with stereotypes of blackness, exoticism and sexuality. Since the painting’s dramatic debut it has been a highlight in Ofili’s exhibitions at Tate Britain (2010) and the New Museum, New York (2014). Also central to the MONA group is Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994, estimate: £400,000 – 600,000), another headline-hitting work from ‘Sensation’, acquired from Charles Saatchi in 2005. Further highlights include Jenny Saville’s Matrix (1999, estimate: £650,000 – 850,000), a monumental portrait of transgender photographer Del LaGrace Volcano, and one of the first examples of Damien Hirst’s radical spin paintings executed the same year that he was awarded the Turner Prize, Beautiful mis-shapen purity clashing excitedly outwards painting, (1995, estimate: £500,000 – 700,000). Founder of MONA, David Walsh is looking to fund an expansion of his museum with the sale of works from his collection.

WORKS FROM THE JACOBS COLLECTION
Christie’s will offer a selection of works from the collection of Lord Anthony and Lady Evelyn Jacobs. The collection places a particular focus on the shifting relationships between abstraction and Pop Art on both sides of the Atlantic and is led by Roy Lichtenstein’s Apples, Grapes, Grapefruit (1974, estimate: £1,800,000 – 2,500,000), an exemplar of the artist’s dialogue of the artistic tradition of still-life painting. Additional highlights include Jean Dubuffet’s Tasse de thé (utopique), 1966 (estimate: £350,000 – 450,000) and Morris Louis’s Number 36 (estimate: £500,000- £700,000). Lifelong collectors and committed patrons of the arts, the Jacobs assembled a collection defined by not only their dedication to modern and contemporary art, but also their keen pursuit of antiquities. Works from the Jacob collection will be offered for auction as part of both the Evening and Day sales.

MORE HIGHLIGHTS: FROM ANDY WARHOL TO JULIE MEHRETU
Further highlights of the auctions include: Andy Warhol’s Five Deaths (1963, estimate: £2,200,000 – 2,800,000), part of his landmark ‘Death and Disaster’ series from the very inception of the artist’s fascination with violence, tragedy and morality. Another work from the 1960s is Malcolm Morley’s SS Amsterdam in Front of Rotterdam (1966, estimate: £600,000 – 800,000), one of the earliest examples of the muchadmired super-realism that would become the hallmark of his career. Previously part of the Saatchi collection, the work sees the beginning of Morley’s lifelong enthrallment with maritime subjects. A further highlight includes Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa (1990, estimate: 2,200,000 – 2,800,000), one of the few examples of his embroidered world maps that feature Farsi script and which commemorates Boetti’s visit to the Afghan city of Herat in 1977.

The sale will also feature works by some of the most highly sought after artists working today. Julie Mehretu’s Looking Back to a Bright New Future (2003, estimate: £1,800,000 – 2,500,000) is a monumental example of the artist’s deft combination of multiple graphic languages with her own intricate vocabulary of symbols and gestures. On a similar scale, Raqib Shaw’s Absence of God I (2008, estimate: £700,000 - £1,000,000), the second in a series of eight works exhibited at the Kunsthalle, Wien in 2008, responds to the nihilist proposition of the work’s title with a glittering, opulent phantasmagoria across two gargantuan panels.

Katharine Arnold, Head of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s said: “Following our successes across Europe this year and the record breaking, $1.2bn week of twentieth century art in New York in May, we are delighted to present our London June Evening Auction. Punctuated throughout with masterpieces by leading Post-War artists, the sale is also defined by the quality of its contemporary art. FC 27 (1962), a pioneering large-scale painting by Yves Klein, the father of conceptual and performance art, is a true masterpiece which marks the triumphant culmination of the artist's practice. Klein is joined by two seminal works by Francis Bacon: Study for Head of Isabelle Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967) is the first diptych ever painted by the artist and features Rawsthorne, Bacon's closest female friend and Giacometti's muse, and Dyer, Bacon’s greatest love and most tragic loss, and Two Men in a Field (1971) is a spectacular work, where the artist pairs his virtuoso technique with imaginative sources including Dali, Bunuel and the dramatic landscapes of Van Gogh whom he so admired. German greats Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke are also reunited in the sale, with Polke's exquisite and rare Mondlandschaft mit Schilf (1969) and Richter's Seestück (Olive bewolkt) (1969) both having been held in private collections for more than two decades. Finally, it goes without question that we expect to see many eyes turn to the group of works from David Walsh's Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania. Among these sentinels of the YBA movement, Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary (1996) is a work like no other. It stands as a piece of art history. We are intensely proud that Christie's can be part of this painting's fascinating journey.”

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction, 1pm, 1 July 2015
The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction on 1st July 2015, is led by works from the Peeters collection with works by Marcel Broodthaers, Alexander Calder and George Segal, alongside further works from the collection of Lord and Lady Jacobs. Also offered are early works by Dubuffet, a Julian Schnabel plate painting and Tom Wesselmann nudes. These are joined by Peter Doig’s Snowboarder (1996, estimate £250,000 – 350,000), which sits within the artist’s pantheon of snow paintings; other examples of which are in collections including Tate, London and Georges Pompidou, Paris. Another highlight is George Condo’s monumental tribute to Picasso Abstract Portrait (2008, estimate: £250,000 – 350,000). The auction will also feature works by a number of post-war Italian masters, notably Piero Manzoni’s striking pebble-covered Achrome (1962, £100,000 - £150,000) and Bonalumi’s Bianco, (1962, estimate: £100,000 - 150,000).